THERE BE LAND RATS AND WATER RATS.
At some distance north of Natchez, and below the third Chickasaw bluff, near the bank of one of the bayous, which seem to run from rather than toward the Mississippi, a band of desperadoes had established a temporary abode, sometime in the year 1805. They were an organized league of robbers, bandits of stream and shore, preying on the solitary traveller who rode through the pines on the way between Natchez and the North, and more frequently surprising the unwary farmer or trader, transporting goods to market by water. A number of flatboats laden with the plunder of the freebooters lay moored close to the north shore, under the shelter of the overhanging bushes, at the distance of a mile or two up this narrow but deep creek. Farther up the bayou, and a few rods from it, in an obscure hollow and almost hidden by cypress trees, from which depended curtains and streamers of gray Spanish moss, stood a log building, the rendezvous of the outlaws. The structure was low and long, consisting of three huts so joined as to look like one.
If a wandering stranger chanced upon this out-of-the-way and forbidding lodge, he might read, painted on a board over the entrance of the cabin, the words, "Cacosotte's Tavern." Within the dingy front cell or bar-room of the prison-like shanty, one evening in the early part of September, five or six persons had assembled. They were rough characters, engaged in drinking and coarse talk. One of the company was a negro. The only woman there was a big-bosomed, brown-visaged, black-eyed, savage looking creature not destitute of wild charm. If long hair be a glory to woman, then was this dark female covered with glory—her glossy mane fell far down over her shoulders and back. Whether she was English, French, Spanish or Indian, or a mixture of these, neither her looks nor her speech determined. She spoke little, and took small interest in what others said, yet seemed to regard herself as the responsible mistress of the premises. She had charge of the housekeeping, such as it was, and dealt out tobacco and liquor. It appeared, however, that she was not the sole manager of Cacosotte's Tavern. Cacosotte himself claimed superior authority, as proprietor.
Cacosotte was a most ill-favored knave, of a purplish yellow complexion and mumbling speech. His comrades called him "Sott" for brevity, or "Nine Eyes," not because he had nine eyes, as he had only one, but because he boasted he had "gouged" nine enemies—that is, dug out their organs of sight with thumb and fingers.
Two of the select party were Burke Pierce and Abe Sheldrake. The least conspicuous individual in the room was a sullen, suspicious, cat-footed man, who kept his slouch hat pulled over his face, and sat apart, smoking a pipe. He was a fresh recruit, and had given his name as Turlipe. Only one day had he been sworn to the service of the brigands, promising to do the bidding of their chief, Burke Pierce.
Expurgated of much grossness and profanity, the discursive talk, in this hiding place of criminals, may be partially reproduced as follows. The chief is first to speak:
"There was a French hunter, who hid a lot of skins in a clearing close by Red River, at a place called 'Cache la Turlipe.' Are you akin to that Turlipe?"
The sullen man shook his head.
"Have you been in the business before this?"
"More or less. I have run on the river all my life; was patron on a Kentucky boat."
"'Tain't a business, it's a profession," put in Nine Eyes. "But the profits ain't wot they used to be, and the risks is greater. I mind the time, cap, when Cave in the Rock, up the Ohio, jest below Massac, was the headquarters of the biggest men in our line. Wilson's boys done their wreck'n along by Hurricane, and stored their stuff in the cave. They carried on the Last Night-Cap game when they could get hold of a good customer."
"What's that?" asked Sheldrake. Cacosotte grinned and winked at Pierce.
"Your pard's too green to plug, cap."
"Don't you Pittsburgers drink a las' snort before goin' to bed? Well, can't you see the pint? They played the game this-a-way. Lodgers at the House of Natur often overslep themselves—couldn't wake up. There was a sign down on the river bank, jest under the cave—'Wilson's Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment.' The durn fool farmers comin' down the river with their produce had a cur'osity to see what the plague a vault was like and how Wilson's liquor tasted. They clim up, got drunk, were put to bed, and——" Here Nine Eyes went through a pantomime suggestive of throat-cutting. The black man, who stuck close by Sheldrake's side, twisted in his seat, and showed the white of his eyes. Sott, delighted to note these signs of trepidation, went on with his reminiscences.
"Cap'n, you ric'lect Colonel Plug, that carried on at Hurricane Island and the mouth of Cash, after Wilson was nabbed? Plug was a Yankee, and a hell of a smart un. He was from Pensylvany. His real name was Fluger, but we called him Plug and his woming Pluggie. I got into a misunderstanding with the colonel about that lady; colonel allowed her and me was too thick, so me and him, begad, had a rough-and-tumble, and that's how I come by this here." He pointed to his empty eye-socket. "Pluggie was one of your furriners—jest like Mex, but not so pooty."
"If she was half as handsome as Mex," said Pierce, "I don't wonder that you gave your right eye for her."
To this compliment Mex responded by resentfully casting the contents of a whiskey glass into Pierce's face and breast, whereupon the men all laughed loud.
"You dasn't smoke the senorita, cap," mumbled Nine Eyes, aside to Pierce.
"The purtiest wench I ever seen," babbled Sheldrake, "was the one me and you spied through the winder at Blennerhassett's, that night Aaron Burr and his pard from Virginy stopped over. I'll never forgit how we snuck up and seen them two sparkin' on the sofy."
"Right you are, Abe; and I was a damned fool not to nab her that day, when she was pullin' posies in the woods——"
"She'd of been a screechin' armful for you, Burke, with them shiny yaller curls of hern flyin' over your shoulder!"
This side colloquy, Mex heard, and her countenance glowered. Noiselessly she came to the bench upon which Palafox sat, and pressed close to his side. The captain, without looking at her, mechanically stroked her long mane.
"Fine wimming," remarked Sott, sagely, "is like pizen vine, pooty and clingin,' but pesky dangerous; I hadn't better teched Pluggie. A woming of your own is worse yet. She spiles on you, and you can't sell her as you do a hoss or a nigger."
Pierce looked at the darky, who grinned self-consciously.
"How many times over has Abe sold you since you ran away from the island?"
"Seben times," answered Honest Moses, and chuckled. "Mistah Sheldrake done sell me fo' cash, plunk down; I fugitives back to him, and he done sell me agin fo' mo' cash. I gits mo' money out o' speculatin' in dis heah darky, dan Scipio and Dan'l can git ahookin' watermillions fo' a hundred yeahs."
Nine Eyes took up his dropped theme.
"The hoss trade," said he, "the hoss trade don't pay here as it did with Wilson's boys. There's more risk in gettin' rid of a hoss than in sellin' the same nigger ten times over. Say, cap, is your new man onto the pass words and signs?" The speaker flung out three fingers of his left hand, to which signal Pierce responded by an answering gesture. But the captain had grown tired of Cacosotte's conversation. He ordered Mex to bring him another drink. Then, turning to Sheldrake, he said in undertones:
"Abe, you mind that trip from Pittsburg to Massac. Recollect what I told you that night? Before many weeks there's going to be a chance for men like us to make our fortunes as easy as floating down the Mississip."
The jealous eye of Mex was constantly dartling, and her ear was alert to catch every syllable Pierce uttered. She paid no attention to Sheldrake, who responded guardedly to his chief's overtures.
"Captain, if you know a safer way, I'd like to learn it. Now that the army is at Fort Adams, and soldiers is comin' and goin' from St. Louis to Orleans, we can't do nothin' widout bein' found out by Gen'l Wilkinson."
"Wilkinson," growled Pierce, with an oath. "Do you suppose I am afraid of his big names, 'General' and 'Governor'? Jimmy Wilkinson owes me money, and he owes me an apology, and he's got to come down from his high horse, or I'm a liar. Eh? Sheldrake, did you ever hear anybody call me a liar? Did you, Mex? Did you, Sott? ever hear any one say Burke Pierce was a liar or a foot-licker?"
"I'd hate to be in the place of the man that 'u'd dare," swore Cacosotte, hastily. He had noticed the excessive drinking, with dread of the probable consequence.
"I guess you would hate to rile me up even if you was a great general, dressed in uniform, and with gold epaulettes and buttons all over. I want to say to you, Abe, and you, Sott, and you over there smoking your pipe, you raw recruit—I've got in my pocket, what will bring the brigadier to terms. Bet your souls on it! Bet your black hair, Mex! Say, you raw recruit, where's your pal? Where's the feller you said wanted to join us? Open you jaws!"
"He is down on the boat," said the sullen man, rising and emptying his pipe. "I'll go hunt him."
"You'll be back and bunk here, or will you sleep on one of the boats?" asked Cacosotte.
"If it's all the same to you, I'll come back and bunk here."
The night was advancing, and the great white owls were beginning a dismal hooting in the cypress trees. Upon reaching the place where the boats were moored to the bushy shore of the bayou, Turlipe called:
"Hello, are you there?"
A man scrambled up the bank in response to the call. The two Spaniards sat upon the bank of the bayou, and held a long consultation in their native language. It was eleven o'clock when Pepillo, alias Turlipe, arose to go back to the tavern.
"You needn't come along, Vexeranno; I can do the job without help. Only stay here and wait. Have the skiff ready to carry us down stream as fast as we can row. I may come back any time in the night."
While Pepillo, squatting on the ground beside the sluggish estuary, imparted to his accomplice the details of a bloody design, Palafox in the tavern waxed more and more violent. He menaced an imaginary foe with clinched fist. Mex tried to soothe him. He sat for a while in sulky quiet. Rousing again, he ordered a candle, opened a leathern wallet, and took from it a number of soiled papers. His hand shook.
"Look here, Abe, these old letters are worth more money than all our plunder will fetch."
No response came from Sheldrake, who had prudently retired to the second compartment of the row of huts opening into one another. The whimsical Cacosotte had named the several rooms "Hell," "Purgatory," and "Heaven." Sheldrake sought a sleeping couch in "Purgatory," whither Honest Moses had preceded him to "flop" in a corner.
Mex stood behind the captain while he sat fumbling over a timeworn manuscript, peering at its hieroglyphics in the dim light of the candle. Cacosotte, yawning, rubbed his one eye, and groped his way to a slumber-rug in "Heaven." Then Mex put her brown hand timidly on the shoulder of Palafox.
"One in woods—not nab—no! no!" she said, shaking her head violently and frowning.
"What you jabbering about now? Don't you see I'm busy?"
"Woman through window—not big Mex—look so!"
She wrinkled her features, and shrank down mimicking a dwarf. The robber now understanding her speech and pantomime, slapped his thigh, guffawed exasperatingly, and, roughly pushing the jealous barbarian aside, "No, Mex, she don't look like that. Tall, white as your teeth, smooth and purty as an antelope——"
"Mex purtier. Mex not Choctaw—Castiliano. Look blood." She nipped her forearm with sharp teeth, and crimson drops oozed.
Palafox laughed.
The mane shook, and the wild eyes glared behind the half-drunken man, who continued to fumble his papers. Before long his hand fell heavily, his eyes closed, and he slept. Mex shook him by the shoulders. Partially aroused, he looked up, thrust the papers and the wallet deep within a breast pocket, quitted the bench, and lay down on a pallet in the corner of the room. Mechanically he deposited a primed pistol under his blanket, ready to hand. Soon he was snoring.
An hour went by. The new recruit had not returned. Mex scarcely kept her eyes open where she crouched, Indian fashion, on a buffalo robe, behind the bar. Nine Eyes had bolted the outer door before retiring. Eleven o'clock; the white owls were at their boldest, hooting lugubrious serenades to the answering wolves. Pepillo was at the cabin door, trying the latch. Mex heard the sound, got up, and unfastened the bolts.
"Sh!" said she, and giving him the candle, pointed to the back room; then drowsily resumed her nest on the buffalo robe. Pepillo took the feeble light; nodded, but did not immediately follow directions. He set the candle down upon the floor in front of the bar, so that its faint flicker, unobserved by the woman, made objects barely visible in the room. This done, he shuffled his feet slightly to apprise the half-conscious guardian of the ominous house that he was obeying her orders, and vanished in the rear darkness. The dead hush of sleep now reigned over the place. So it seemed, but the stealthy Pepillo was wide awake. He remained motionless, breathless, hidden in the gloom of the second cabin. At length he reappeared, took up the candle, stood awhile listening, then moved cautiously to the edge of the counter, behind which the woman slept in her lair. He peeped over to assure himself of her complete somnolence. Satisfied that Mex would not likely be roused by any slight disturbance, he stole to the front door and undid the fastenings so softly that not a creak of the bolt sliding from its staple was heard even by his own quick ear. But when he swung the door open, providing for his ready escape, the hinges gave out a complaining sigh. The sound was faint, but it startled Mex. She raised her drowsy head, and through the mass of sable hair tangling over her half-open eyes, peered out from behind the shelter of the bar. Pepillo had drawn a poignard and was tip-toeing toward the sleeping captain. Mex gave a catamount cry. Palafox started up, pistol in hand, none too soon to avoid the deadly blade of the assassin. "Palafox!" This one word was all Pepillo uttered. In the act of springing to stab, he leaped to his own death, shot through the head. As he fell, the poignard, escaping his relaxed grasp, rang on the floor. Mex, who tiger-like had sprung from her covert, snatched up the shiny weapon, and fiercely stabbed it into Pepillo's lifeless breast.
Cacosotte and Sheldrake, roused by the report of a pistol, hurried in, staring amazedly at Palafox, Mex and the fallen Spaniard.
"Carry that out," ordered Palafox, nodding toward the body. "Tie a stone to its neck and chuck it into the bayou." The two men obeyed. "Get something, Mex, and wipe up that puddle," pointing to the blood on the floor. "You must keep Hell clean."
The wild creature, quivering with ferocious passions, put a fondling arm around the manslayer.
"Mex wake captain. Help kill. Mex Castiliano. Nigger wench—no!—Injun squaw—no!—Your woman."